THE littlest thing can spark an idea for this column.

(I write it every week, you’ll have noticed, so I need ideas)

I was popping out of the office at lunch time and held the door for an old man who’d come to buy his Guardian.

“No, no, you go first,” he said, “I’ve got more time than you.”

I smiled and took up his offer to hold the door for me, which he did, his paper tucked under his arm.

As I strolled along the street I thought about what he’d said. In the sense that he was retired with no appointments to keep and I was on my lunch break with a requirement to return to my desk, then he was right. He had more time than me.

But in the sense that he was much older than me – in his 80s I would guess – and, not to put too fine a point on it, likely to receive a call from the Grim Reaper sooner than me, then he was wrong.

But that’s the funny thing about time, isn’t it? It’s not always how much you have but the quality of how you spend it.

We all get the same amount each day. Yet some people achieve so much with theirs while others moan there aren’t enough hours in the day.

Whether you fill every minute or while away your time, the important thing is to enjoy your time. Seriously. If you’re doing things that don’t make you happy, then what’s it all for?

Easier said than done, I understand, when there are bills to be paid and mouths to be fed.

But chances are if you follow your heart and attempt to do what you are passionate about then the universe will conspire to bring the right circumstances to you. And that won’t necessarily mean a bulging bank balance.

But it will mean a sense of purpose.

As a society we’re obsessed with money. Everywhere we look we’re told we should be spending more and more of it. On and on it goes.

To spend it means first we have to make it.

We trade off our time in pursuit of this thing, money. And end up with less and less time in which to spend it anyway.

Who is the richer?

The workaholic wage slaves grinding away dozens of hours a week at a desk in the city to pay for a lavish lifestyle for their family in the big houses they never see?

Or the people who bring in little in the way of material things but spend their time on their passions?

A personal choice, of course.

Better finish now otherwise I’ll miss my deadline.